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| Korea's Choi Seo-u flies during his PyeongChang Olympics men's large hill ski jumping qualification round at Alpensia Ski Jumping Center, Friday. / Yonhap |
By Nam Hyun-woo
Korea's men's curling team could not overcome the formidable Canadians on Friday, extending its losing streak to four-games.
At Gangneung Curling Center, the team of Seong Se-hyeon, Oh Eun-su, Lee Ki-bok and skip Kim Chang-min was defeated 6-7 by World No. 1 Canada in their their round robin match.
Following the match, the Koreans fell to the bottom of the 10-team table with a 0-4 record overall, and the Canadians improved to 4-0 to lead the round robin session.
Team Canada, comprised of Marc Kennedy, Brent Laing, Ben Hebert and skip Kevin Koe, never lost the lead throughout the match.
The Canadians built an early 3-1 lead, scoring three points in the third end and capitalized by widening the gap to 7-3 after the eighth end. The Koreans narrowed the gap within two points in the ninth end and added another point in the 10th, but fell short of making a comeback.
Hours earlier, the Koreans suffered a 5-7 defeat against Norway.
1st female skeleton racer from Korea
While Korea's Yun Sung-bin won gold in the men's skeleton, compatriot Jeong Sophia also raced in the women's skeleton, coming in 15th out of 20 after two heats.
Jeong, who is the first female skeleton racer from Korea, clocked a combined 1:45.14, after posting 52.67 seconds in the second heat.
In the first heat hours earlier, she clocked 52.47 seconds, which was a track record, but with 13 other racers subsequently beating that record, she dropped to 13th place.
After two heat races, Jacqueline Loelling of Germany is atop the leaderboard with 1:43.86, followed by Janine Flock of Austria with 1:43.88 and Lizzy Yarnold of the U.K. with 1:43.96.
Jeong will continue her race on Saturday.
Six-time Olympian advances in ski jump
Korea's Choi Seo-u qualified in the first round of competition in men's large hill ski jumping, after placing 46th out of 57.
At Alpensia Ski Jumping Center, Choi jumped 114.5 meters to score 73.5 points in the qualification round, from which 50 jumpers will move on to the next round.
The PyeongChang Olympics is Choi's sixth consecutive Olympic appearance since the Nagano Games in 1998.
His compatriot Kim Hyun-ki, who is also a six time Olympian, failed to qualify in the first round, after placing 55th with a jump of 101.5 meters and scoring 46.4 points.
